Today’s the Worst Day for Mitt Romney’s High School Bullying Story to Come Out

Is this why Obama chose yesterday to publicly support gay marriage? Elspeth Reeve writes at the Atlantic Wire:

What would be the worst possible news for Mitt Romney to have to deal with the day after President Obama announced he supports gay marriage? Romney’s already had a gay staffer resign because social conservatives were outraged he’d hire an openly gay person. And having a hypothetical family member come out as gay would probably help him seem more compassionate.

But one thing that might project an image Romney really wants to avoid — heartless outmoded anti-gay conservative — would be a long profile in The Washington Post about how he bullied a gay kid in high school. At the exact moment Romney doesn’t want to talk about gay stuff, the Post‘s Jason Horowitz reports Romney led a gang of boys who singled out a gay kid, held him down while he cried, and cut off the kid’s offensively un-hetero hair. No one ever likes a bully, but it’s really a bad time to be an anti-gay bully. (Update: Romney apologized Thursday morning for high school pranks that went too far.)

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I’ve said it before – I don’t understand what Disinfo has become. These are all just regular, run-of-the-mill news stories. It’s just any old news aggregation site now. Now it’s just stories on the elections, human interest, arts & entertainment, sports, whatever.

Too bad, this used to be a good site.

http://twitter.com/jasonpaulhayes jasonpaulhayes

“Now it’s just stories on the elections, human interest, arts & entertainment, sports, whatever”, such an intellectually vacuous analysis getting 6 likes is more telling of the problem than any content on Disinfo.

Andrew

The problem is that Dante and those who liked his comment obviously haven’t submitted enough articles.

SuperSerial

How is that empty logic maybe that’s hsi honest opinion. Also who are you to put down someone else?

razzlebathbone

Once again, for our patrons in the cheap seats:

IT’S A USER-SUBMITTED SITE.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE DIFFERENT KINDS OF ARTICLES, FUCKING SUBMIT THEM.

Thank you.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

Wow, I know this is a tight election and everyone is scrambling for every vote, but this is really reaching. You’re seriously going to bring up something that a high school kid did almost 50 years ago?

Yes, it was wrong. But, a lot of 18 year old kids do stupid things. They didn’t kill anyone.

That just reeks of desperation.

eraser820

And what if the kid had put up more of a fight? Knocked the teeth out of one of his assailants? Mob mentality as applied to bullying is messy thing, and the high emotions of teenage persons only make this worse. This easily could have been the story of how Mitt Romney Et Al sent some poor kid to the hospital beaten to within an inch of their lives. This isn’t desperation, this is making a point. 99% of people go through school perfectly fine without leading a mob of their fellow classmates to assault one that they have labeled an outcast. And make no mistake the act committed is just as much an assault as if blows had been exchanged. Now ask yourself do you really want that sorta person running the country?

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

Yes, it is desperation.

Everything you are saying is pure speculation. It didn’t happen. It isn’t even alleged. I’m not going to judge people based on what could have happened.
I’m not saying what he did was right. It wasn’t.

I’m saying he was 18. Nearly 50 years have passed since then. Seeing as how we don’t have any evidence that his thuggish behavior was repeated over the years, I’m going to assume he grew up. It’s a process lots of people have to go through.

As for wanting Romney for President, no not really. But, I slightly prefer him to the guy who, admittedly, didn’t want much to do with anyone who wasn’t a radical leftist in college. And, no, I’m not going to hold that against him cuz I was pretty far to the left in my college days.

Haystack

He grew up…or he bullied his way through life until he became even more wealthy and powerful.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

Show me that it became a pattern and I’ll reconsider.

Auto

Desperation is clowns like SPET67 defending a near-do-well like Romney, hoping he’ll protect your elitist #$$ from paying taxes. You ,sir, are pathetic to want some one of Romneys character as a leader. If Romney is looking for ‘sympathy’ for his anti-social actions, as far as I’m concerned he can look between $hit and syphilis in the dictionary refered to above.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

LMFAO at you.

Romney is a successful businessman, a former Governor and even money to become our next president. I’d guess that you can’t match that resume. If he’s a near do well, where does that put you on the food chain?

As for my “elitist ass” I’m working class dude. I don’t claim to be elite in any way shape or form. As for paying more taxes, of course I’d like to keep them as low as possible. But, given what I make, a tax hike isn’t going to take much of a bite. But, please just go ahead making up your facts as you go. I’m sure I’ll find whatever you say amusing.

As for my being pathetic for wanting a man of Romney’s character in office. Well, he’s not my 1st choice by any means. But, at least I’m not supporting the guy who claims the right to murder American citizens without judicial review, in violation of the constitution he swore to uphold. Somehow that seems a little more serious than giving someone an involuntary haircut 50 years ago.

Go enjoy the free stuff I paid for. Yes, I know, I assuming. But, seeing as how you did it to me…

mysophobe

Romney vigorously agreed with the killing of Al-Alwaki. What else you got?

From CNN.com (the last sentence summarizes the situation well):
“Perhaps Romney really doesn’t remember the assault on John Lauber nearly a half-century ago, despite the fact that so many of the other people who were there have never forgotten it. Or perhaps he decided that claiming ignorance would be the safest course of crisis management. But what he said told people nothing about the man he is today and how he has changed and grown over that time. We’re all different people than we were in our youth, and we all have regrets. The 17-year-old Mitt Romney may have been a privileged, entitled boy with a mean streak. The 65-year-old Mitt Romney missed an opportunity to convince us he’s something different.”
Full post:http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/opinion/waldman-romney-bully-teen/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Geoarltr

You know, at first I was kind of inclined to agree with you and then I started thinking. I have not always been a shining example of personhood, but when I was kid I can remember not wanting to be a bully like a lot of my friends. I like taking the side of the underdog. What an adult is, is closely related to what they were when they were young. I can see where a privileged person such as Mitt would hold his own standards against the world and that bully child might just take things out on those he sees as beneath him as an adult.

Andrew

Add to that Willard’s claim that he doesn’t remember the incident.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

I’ve said this above, but I’ll repeat it. Show me that this became a pattern that continued into his adulthood and I’ll reconsider.

http://twitter.com/alizardx A.Lizard

So if Mittens had set fire to a kitten as a kid, you’d be telling us to ‘move on’?

Some forms of youthful misconduct are indicators of potential serious psychological malfunction in that person once he has become adult, of the sort that should cause alarm in anybody hiring for a responsible position.I’m certain that if this had been Obama, people like you would replace “concern” about his birth certificate with concern about his fitness to hold ANY public office.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

Uhh, no. Part of how psychologists determine if a person is mentally ill is to look at if their behavior departs significantly from accepted social norms. At the time this happened, bullying was common & while most adults didn’t approve of it “Boys will be boys”

To my knowledge, burning kittens would have always been a red flag.

As I said above, show me where this has become a pattern that has extended into his adulthood and I will reconsider.

Andrew

I think a good portion of his current proposed policies could be seen as a continuation of his earlier cruelty, but than that’s true of the Republicans in general.

Little_green_chicken

thats part of the problem with bullying, many people just refer to it as ‘stupid things’…i’m sorry but at 18 years old, you know better! There are 8 year old with more compassion. If you don’t know better at 18, then you should, and if you don’t, your parents sucked…sorry, but it’s true, stop making excuses for bullies! Do you have any idea the amount of pain and suffering bullying causes? How it destroys and permanently damages people? How it causes young people to committ suicide because they feel that they don’t deserve to live, have no happy future and can’t take it anymore? Shame on all bullies, because they make this world miserable and GUESS WHAT? they mostly grow up to become worse bullies.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RWWAEM343UIK2IBZB3OXQZTQXM SPET67

I was the victim of some bullying when I was a shy, skinny red headed kid. I got over it.
It was kids stuff.

Is bullying wrong? Yes. Should we be working to put a stop to it? Of course.

Am I going to have a fit over 1 incident that happened over 45 years ago, when standards were different. no?

I will reconsider if you can show me where this became a pattern that extended into his adulthood, Until then I’m going to consider this an isolated incident that happened when he was an immature kid.

PET CARE (verb): “strapping a dog to the roof of your car & driving across country, pausing occasionally to hose him off when he shits himself.”

$10,000 (noun): “a casual bet.”

MITT (proper noun): “Willard.”

OBAMACARE (noun): “a system of healthcare popular in Massachusetts.”

POOR (antonym): “The opposite of Willard.”

Calypso_1

Mittens personal obession with coiffure has deep roots.

StillAtMyMoms

Politics is nothing more than a fucking diversion, a charade to merely divide and conquer. Our “reality” is really so distorted that it makes the conspiracies look like the most logical explanations to things. I wear my tinfoil hat with pride.